Looking at Marie,s reef aquarium, her experience, her success with both corals and fish, I will take her at her word.

Here hoping he makes in back to health.

+1 I've had that thought before but didn't want to get in trouble for saying it.

Most fish can fight off ich, I hope he'll pull through and be ok. Usually it's only when they're really stressed that they can't fight it off. The only thing that I can think of, that could be stressing him out, is that he's getting to a size were your tank is a bit to small for him, but he's been healthy for so long it seems likely that he'll pull through.

I find most fish will show the signs of Ich and will take about 4-8 days before they build up enough of their immune system to fight it off. So don't worry Marie....... DOOFUS CAN DO IT.

That surely can have an influence, but I also beleive that ich can have different force or strength with different strain of the parasites. It is said that after about 10 generations the ich exhaust itself and disapear unless some new strain is re-introduced. It might be that some strain of ich are more nasty than others.

It's the same with bacterial infection, some fish might fight it and some might not, but when a very virulent strain of bacteria is on the loose very little can escape because it multiply too fast and get to a plague proportion.

It hapened to me with discus and discus plague. Had to treat all my fish for many days with permaganate potassium to save them but usually fish can fight off bacterias, unless you introduce a strain that is very nasty.

I guess it can be like the flesh eating bacteria. It is a bacteria often found in the environment and usualy does not cause trouble, until a strain of it start to attack people's flesh.

Just a theory :)

Or just like some strain of flukes have now developed a resistance to prazipro and are nearly impossible to kill whereas some strain of flukes (same specie) are killed easily.

First of all, I'm pretty sure that in my readings I had found that ich is present in every tank, but a healthy fish is able to fight them off. I'm going to have to agree with Marko (except for the gallon of ich in a tank part), but unfortunately I won't be able to back it up.

Second, what about a neon goby and/or cleaner wrase (preferably the goby as the wrasses don't have great track records)? Cleaner shrimp? My regal tang ends up with ich on occassion and when he's got it, he spends a lot of time with me neon goby... and then he's fine. Just a suggestion.

Also, out of curiosity, what kind of fish is Doofus?

Doofus is an Achilles Tang

This is a Doofus, ich is very obvious on him
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...l/P4230102.jpg
Ich is present in every tank that has not practiced rigorous quarantining. Everyone is agreed that ich needs fish to survive so if a tank has been fallow (no fish, nothing new added)) for at least 8 weeks then it would stand to reason the ich would die out. Then if every fish has gone through hyposalinity or copper treatment before being added to tank......where exactly could the ich come from? it doesn't manufacture itself from thin air/water :lol:
My tank has gone through that and for 5 1/2 yrs Doofus has never had a single white spot on him

Few things I've read (don't know if they're true but hey I read them on the internet)

- Ich disappearing has nothing to do with it going away. Is no reason to really celebrate as it's just gone to a new stage in its life cycle

- cleaners and shrimp don't really do much for the ich itself (myth) besides itch the spot and pick off loose scales.

Marie,

I've admired your tank from a far, and from what I've seen you'd be far from being an "idiot." Until reading this thread, I never knew that ich or some other parasites could be transferred from corals. So this thead is not ONLY entertaining, but informative as well. Hahaha!

Sorry to hear Marie. Let me know if you need a hand with anything.
Even though Ich is the Achille's Achilles, Doofus is fit as a fiddle and I'm sure he will be just fine.
Ever since my nasty episode with Ich & MV I've kept a QT tank set up. Anything going in the tanks stays in QT until I'm satisfied it's healthy. And you taught me that so I can call you an idiot. :mrgreen: